Saturday, April 20, 2024
Those who have devoted countless hours to Netflix binging will enjoy Cinergy Entertainment’s newest promotion — the Box Office Binge.
For the first time ever, Cinergy Cinemas in Granbury will be offering its Elite Rewards Members a chance to watch as many movies as possible on Saturday, Jan. 28, with the purchase of a $15 ticket.
Becoming an Elite Rewards Member is free, and only takes five minutes to sign up online.
Box Office Bingers will receive unlimited free popcorn refills during the day, as well as a chance to see five of the theater’s current showings: “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “A Man Called Otto,” “Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist,” “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” and “Missing.”
Two movies that are still tentative as being part of the lineup are “M3GAN,” and “Plane.”
“We don't have the entire calendar laid out because it kind of depends on what goes well the week before,” said Jeff Benson, Cinergy Founder and CEO. “Of course, ‘Avatar’ is, I believe, the biggest box office grossing movie, short of ‘Top Gun,’ so we got the best movie we could possibly have with ‘Avatar,’ and of course, ‘A Man Called Otto,’ that's got Tom Hanks in it. ‘Puss in Boots,’ my youngest son went and saw it this weekend and he loved it. ‘Plane’ over performed last week. ‘M3GAN’ is a horror movie, and it overperformed the week before last when it opened up, so the movie selection is not bad for the end of January and it's hellaciously good when you think for one price, you can go watch them all.”
If attendees would like to leave the theater during the day for lunch or dinner during the promotion on Saturday, they will be allowed reentry upon showing their ticket confirmation and wristband.
Benson noted that the decision to host the Box Office Binge promotion was a way for Cinergy Entertainment to give back to — and “do right by” — the community that has supported its business since the beginning.
Cinergy Entertainment is a privately, family-owned and operated company by Benson and his wife, Jamie. They started in the exhibition industry by constructing two traditional cinemas in 1999 before founding the Movie Tavern chain of dine-in theaters in 2001.
In 2005, the Bensons recapitalized the company by entering into a joint venture that allowed Movie Tavern to become the largest and fastest-growing operator of dine-in theaters in the United States. The Bensons sold their interest in Movie Tavern in 2008. At the time of the sale, Movie Tavern operated 98 screens in 12 complexes in five states.
Cinergy Entertainment was founded just one year later in Granbury and has now expanded to eight additional locations: Charlotte, North Carolina; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Wheeling, Illinois; and the Texas cities of Amarillo, Copperas Cove, Marble Falls, Midland, and Odessa.
"We started in Granbury,” Benson said. “That was my first theater back in 1999. We leased it for about 10 years to ShowBiz Cinemas and then we took it over right during the pandemic, remodeled it and put in the recliners. Granbury has been great to us for 23 years now.”
Cinergy Entertainment was crowned the 2019 International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions winner for the Top Family Entertainment Center in the World and as such, is the recognized leading operator of luxury cinema entertainment centers, according to cinergy.com. The company currently operates 75 screens, 42 lanes of bowling, 24 ax throwing lanes, and more than 400 arcade games in eight locations — with more coming soon.
The Box Office Binge promotion will be held at all Cinergy locations and is only the second promotion that the company has held lately, including the $3 movie day held in September by the National Association of Theaters.
“We participated where you could see as many first-run movies as you wanted for $3 apiece,” Benson said. “We wanted to play off that a little bit, but we wanted to do our own thing, so we decided to do unlimited movies for a higher price knowing that people may see four or five movies in a day.”
Benson said if this promotion shows a good response from the community, he “wouldn’t be against” holding it again next spring as another gift to Granbury residents.
"We have deep, long ties to Granbury, all the way back to 1988 when my parents bought a lake house,” he said. “My brother has been on the volunteer fire department for 20 years. My parents live at that house now full-time. We love Granbury; it’s a great place, and it got us started all those years ago. It spawned the whole Movie Tavern thing and that spawned Cinergy, so honestly, it all revolves back around Granbury.”
To utilize the Box Office Binge promotion, go online to cinergy.com/signup to become an Elite Rewards Member.
Benson added, “Just come in, enjoy the recliners, sit back, and watch as many movies as you can cram into a day.”
